"Apple has also been concerned about Indian customs officials, who typically open up packages."
From Sankalp Phartiyal and Saritha Rai's "Apple’s New iPhone 14 to Show India Closing Tech Gap With China" posted Monday on Bloomberg News:
Apple Inc. plans to begin manufacturing the iPhone 14 in India about two months after the product’s initial release out of China, narrowing the gap between the two countries but not closing it completely as some had anticipated...
Matching China’s pace of iPhone production would have marked a major milestone for India, which has been touting its attractiveness as an alternative at a time when rolling Covid lockdowns and US sanctions jeopardize China’s position as factory to the world. Assembling iPhones often entails coordination between hundreds of suppliers and meeting Apple’s infamously tight deadlines and quality controls.
One challenge in narrowing the cap of India production is secrecy. Apple goes to extreme lengths to keep new product details confidential, and imposing the same rigorous controls in a second country would prove difficult.
Local executives in India examined entirely cornering off a section of one of Foxconn’s multiple assembly lines, sequestering workers and scrutinizing all possible ways in which the security around the device could be compromised, according to two of the people. Thus far, the drastic security controls and stringent seclusion of its China facilities would be challenging to replicate, one of the people said.
Apple has also been concerned about Indian customs officials, who typically open up packages to check whether imported materials match their declarations, another potential vulnerability for product secrecy.
My take: Don't Chinese customs officers open up Apple's shipments?
Could be that Chinese customs agents who leak secrets are sent for “re-education”.